Saturday, March 05, 2005
Wythe wrestler is one of a kind at state meet
Hadley Perona is the only girl who advanced to the Group A or AA championships in Salem.
varsity.roanoke.com
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One didn't have to be a private eye to pick out Hadley Perona in the crowded congregation of 447 wrestlers assembled for Friday's start of the Group A and Group AA tournaments at the Salem Civic Center.
In a testosterone sea full of rippled physiques and muscle mania, Perona was the one with the long and flowing blonde locks. She was the only girl on the mats.
No big deal, said the 103-pounder from George Wythe High School.
"Basically, I look at it as if I'm just like one of the guys," Perona said. "I mean, I clip my nails shorter, that's about the only difference. I do paint my toenails before every match, so I'm probably the only one who does that. And I'm almost definitely the only one with their toenails painted pink."
Sounds like a safe pin there.
Only the third female wrestler ever to participate in a Virginia state wrestling tournament, Perona came agonizingly close to rewriting history Friday afternoon. She had Parry McCluer's Brandon Cash in prime position for a pin in their first-round Group A consolation match, only to let him escape.
"I thought I had him," Perona said. "That was my big chance and I let it get away."
As 99.9 percent of the house expected, Cash eventually became money, pinning Perona's shoulders to the canvas a minute later.
"Hadley was so close, so close to making history as the only girl to ever win a match in a state tournament," said Maroons coach Trey Jones, shaking his head. "Just a little different move here or there and she maybe could have won both of those matches today."
Perona, a senior, may not have accomplished her goal of putting her name in the record book, but so what. Hey, you still go, girl, even though you've wrestled your last foe.
"Hadley has got nothing to be ashamed about," said Kris McSheehan, GW's senior 275-pounder. "I respect her so much for doing what she's done. Everybody on this team is so proud of her."
After winning only one match in her first two years on the squad, Perona came to the state tournament with a 9-18 record. She pinned John Battle's Will Haderer in 1:56 in last Saturday's third-place Region D match to join Andee Sears of Shawsville and Firen Gassman of Herndon as the only girls to qualify for the state event.
"I bet that kid heard some stuff at school about that," McSheehan said, referring to Haderer. "If I was a dude, I would quit wrestling if I got beat by a girl."
Billy Lewis, the Maroons' senior 215-pounder, said he's glad that Perona has been on his side.
"She has wrestled some really tough guys, guys I thought she couldn't beat, and she's rolled 'em over and pinned 'em," Lewis said. "I know it makes the guys nervous. There were a few who actually forfeited because they didn't want to wrestle a girl. I couldn't."
Perona, who comes across as anything but the "tomboy" type, was never oblivious to the heavy burden to win placed on guys facing her.
"I understand why guys would be upset losing to me," she said. "Hey, I'm a girl! I've lost to a girl and that was maybe the worst loss in my life because I don't like losing to girls, either."
Of course, the girl did pay her dues. Her teammates acknowledged that Perona has worked as hard as they have the past three years in the steamy GW wrestling room.
"She's a tough girl, a different type girl," McSheehan said. "She's like one of us. She talks like us, acts like us."
Well, in most ways. Before taking up wrestling in her sophomore year, Perona already was used to wearing tights. Ballet tights, that is.
"I decided I needed a winter sport before track season because there wasn't much ballet in Wytheville and I was just sitting around," she said. "I had a friend on the wrestling team and none on the other winter teams, so I went that route."
Perona's parents, who moved to Wytheville from Northern Virginia her freshman year, didn't exactly turn flips when their daughter came home one day and informed them that she wanted to go out for the wrestling team.
"My dad said, 'Well, I don't know if you know what you're getting yourself into,'" Perona said. "Now that I've liked wrestling so much, my dad has put all three of my little brothers into wrestling, and they're loving it.
"Still, I'll never forget when I started wrestling. I came down the hallway and somebody cursed and snapped their fingers and handed over like $5 to another guy because they had bet on whether or not I would show up at practice. The next day, the same thing happened. Finally, they stopped betting because I guess they figured I was going to keep coming. The guys have been with me the whole way since.
"Hey, I've taken my share of butt-whoppings. But I was having too much fun to quit. Some of the best matches I've had is when a kid just kicked my butt."
Talk about a one-of-a-kind girl.
